GLASTONBURY 2000 - Sunday
Quote of the Day: Me, watching Dave Bowie
Band… ‘I want Iggy Pop to come on.’ Charlie, wisely… ‘No. You’d explode.’
Though I can’t have her Orange freebie lobster ( she’s so attached to
that she’s taken to wearing the thing around her neck as some sort of orange
furry talisman ), Philippa did, during last night’s 
Cabaret, give me her teddy-bear phone
holder, Saturday’s recharge gift from the Orange tent. ( Curse my One2One
loyalty. ) Now. While the lobster was approaching mobile-size, the bear is,
well, substantially larger. To hold the lobster to your ear would be sweetly
peculiar, to hold up the teddy and talk into it, crackers.
Yesterday, while Adam swiftly swiped the thing for head-resting
duty, leaning on one of the Tent’s support struts, the bear was returned when
we got back to camp… And I since found that it does prove a quite capable
pillow…
I can’t remember what we did in the morning, beyond natter around the
tents. However, I do have pictorial proof of the consumption of strawberry
laces, not that that could have occupied us in entirety for a four-hour period.
And planning the day’s schedule was a relatively swift task, given the dearth
of enticement on offer. The first band on that I want to see are at 18:20. (
Why? When in the evening, again, everyone clumps – Ross Noble’s fantastic new
hair and its delightful wearer are on at EXACTLY the same time as the Dave
Bowie band – aargh. ) While the others go off to see Jools Holland ( 
wanking over a piano in his unique smug
way ) this afternoon, it is for the sake of his namesake that I drag Chi along
to the Cabaret Tent. ‘High quality stuff’, I assure her. I didn’t realise quite
how spoon-obsessed JOOLZ’s time onstage would turn out to be ( though yes,
‘spoon’ is indeed a comedy word which stands on its own, as does ‘cagoule’ ).
Or that she would come across like a bit of a Northern scally, rather than an
incisive creature of great lyrical beauty, which is what her radio readings had
me expecting. ( Though it was nice to be able to put a face to the voice. )
Poems were read out about Bradford, her favourite café, and the people that
inhabit it. She chatted, confided. She’d asked her publishers to put an advert
for her novel in the Glastonbury Souvenir Magazine, and they’d refused, telling
her that ‘people who go to Glastonbury don’t read’. ( They had however, printed
up flyers for her. Which she then had to distribute. ) And with all this, she
ran over so far as to be unable to read anything from the book itself...
From the Cabaret, Chi went off to explore the Greenfields with her
afternoon, while I went off to investigate the goings-on elsewhere.
Accordingly, I arrived in the Kids Field at about half-one, and moved to check
the Entertainment times. My mashy mates ( huh-huh ) will be on at two, so in
the interim I have a bit of a nosey around the field, decide all festivals
should come equipped with a helter skelter, and then go and settle myself down
in the Kids Tent. Where I saw a man ( with a look of the type-cast ‘gay junkie’
for Ch5 TVMs about him… who actually does CTV but I got the channel right… )
entice his young charges up onstage to moon-walk and body-pop with him. He had
a flying tortoise. On a stick. Called Alan. This, I now realise, is the secret
to a good entertainer. ( If I fall on ‘hard times’, in later years, or just
decide I have a burning desire to do Kids TV, I’ll get myself a terrapin, dub
it Norbert, and tour. ) The tortoise ‘flew’ over the heads of the mostly-under5
crowd, to rapturous screams, each child hoping Alan would pick them as the
lucky recipient of a balloon monkey which looked suspiciously like a poodle.
( Recounting this, later, to one of my
house-mates, I told her… ‘Maybe it was the booze, but it just seemed like
genius. Even the juggling.’ She looks at me, eyebrows raised. ‘Maybe?’ )
And, that over, energy heightened and the kids duly wired, there was
BODGER & BADGER, the ostensible reason for my loitering. ( Mostly, the tent
was kids and their Ribena-dispensing family members, but for one group of
late-teens directly behind 
me, and another right in the sticky
centre of the five-year old crowd. ) This year, the adverts have proudly
declared, comes the Full Stage-Show. For the audience, this means a permanent
hand-painted set, more ( expensive ) props than previous years’ bowl and whisk,
and a story. With plot. And actors. And everyfink. But I didn’t want plot or a
linear structure ( though the accompanying set and automated masher were nice
), just the cabaret slapstick ( and spangly-wangly costumes ) of the previous
years, where the crowd were effortlessly worked from onstage. There were
moments of genuine humour, particularly for the adults, but… it just didn’t
work as well. AND there was far too heavy a reliance on the word ‘poo’ for
comedic effect. After an hour and a quarter ( eek ) of this, I left, for the
sake of THE LEAGUE, grinning to myself with the prospects of re-appropriating
one of Badger’s catch-phrase ideas… Copying his lead, one can neatly sum up any
given situation, using a choice adjective ( e.g. ‘bossy’ ) , followed by the
word ‘potatoes’. So. My ridiculously-useless ability to find the Grebelands
Ground Show which was to be hosting the technical wizardry of Simon Munnery at
half-three would thus be declared as LOST POTATOES!
I
move out of the Kids Field, and into the next one, heading for the cluster of
people in front the acrobats. I sit down to the side of one stage. Collect
myself. Check out my hopelessly-ineffective map, and then the blackboard before
me. Realise myself to be in the wrong place. Move. Try the
‘sitting-down-at-a-random-stage’ plan in the next field. Again, fail. This is
the outdoor circus. And at the moment, they being between-acts, the compere has
decided to heckle the people continually walking past the stage, using the
space between it and the audience as some sort of pathway. At this point, I
begin to regret sitting myself down at the front of the crowd. I wait for a
clump of people to begin to pass, and then join them, hoping for safety in
numbers. It doesn’t work. I’m spotted. But the compere becomes splutteringly
tongue-tied at the task of finding anything to say about me. I am declared
heckle-proof, which I find delightful, and bubble the knowledge around me as I
set off for the Cabaret Tent ( which I KNOW I can find ).
Twenty-past three, and I’m in there just in time. The mud veteran
MITCH BENN was an accidental 
finding last year ( on instead of someone
else, agreeable & ever-funny, he is the ultimate stand-by ), and one to be
made a point of in the future. In the vein of Bill Bailey ( he has long hair
& a guitar ), Benn rambles through his material and punctuates it with
song, chucking in self-deprecation, observation and satire along the way. His calling
card has, somewhat unfortunately, now become the anthemic ‘Crap Shag’ number –
at last year’s Edinburgh, two lads careening past in a taxi yelled it out at
him, in a busy street, much to his chagrin ( and that of his ladyfriend ). And
his words DO reach the masses: the frazzle-eyed bloke sitting next to me was
singing along to the night-bus hymn of ‘Scary Weirdoes’, in itself a
full-circle irony…
Set over, I bought a copy of his CD, so’s
I too can learn such lyrical delights and clap along in the comfort of my own
home…and then wandered back to the tent. To have a bit of a sit down, a
smackerel of something, and a complain about the evening’s line-up: the
afternoon’s been dryer than a meer-cat’s arse, and only now are there plentiful
delights on offer, albeit at the same time.
And then off again, to escort Chi to see some kinky rock kittens
drawling around on the Other Stage. We approach from the right ( because I
stand Peter-side, for this band ), and in so doing pass Charlie and Jesse. Which
was nice. ( Because, of 
the lot of them, only Hu’s mobile now
works, making them fairly un-get-at-able. And because Jesse’s promised me his
lobster, and here I could remind him of it before they left. ) And so Chi was
introduced to the pair of them, I gave Jesse toothache ( he’s too polite to
decline my proffered sweeties ), and we all set to wondering just why exactly
Courtney now looks like Axl Rose caught in a drive-by knitting incident. All
hail to THE DANDY WARHOLS, cowboy Kings of sleazy rock, deftly doling out the
hits past & future like chocolate treats to the amassed masses. ‘There is
only one way for sinners to reach salvation’ declares Courtney triumphantly. He
pauses. ‘A spanking!’ Zia duly performs the smacking duties, on a hapless cohort
who’d been watching from the wings, as the band rock and reel their way through
‘White Gold’. The new album is glorious, this set proved it, and the sunny
weather end to the afternoon was only marred by the nursery rhyme encore… The
rest of the band have left the stage, and then the entire field get to chorus
‘Yikes’ as one, faced with Zia’s quavering ‘Daisy Song’, an ode to one of her
toes’ tattoos. ( Pissed much? Hel-LO? )
And then the others solve my New Tent / Other Stage dilemma ( by telling
me Muse are crap, and reminding me how long it’s been since I’ve seen their
excellent time-slot rivals ), and, being pliable to persuasion I decide not to
be so lazy and move off with them. En route, we walk past two girls, both of
whom exclaim over my bag.
‘Oooh, it’s Gizmo,’ squeaks one.
‘Who?’ worries the other.
‘You know, Gizmo’, comes the reassurance,
‘from the Muppet Show’.
Aargh.
And most EVERYONE ELSE has been so good,
with their excited pointy-finger squeals.
No-one has accused him of being an Ewok,
a wookie, a cat, sodding Emu, or even ( penalties for the technicality ) a
gremlin. This, I would like taken as proof that neither rock music nor chemical
substances destroy the vital parts of the brains of today’s youth…
And in the New Band Tent, are a band over a decade old, still taking it
upon themselves to delight with their pop-noodles. YO LA TENGO. Who are every
bit as ( good as ) I remember them, still cuddling up to us with autumn hugs of
songs. Only now, on one of the songs, they have a dance-routine. With
synchronised movements. And twirls. Yo La Tengo. ( It felt comparable to
watching Mark E. Smith suddenly start pirouetting. ) It was enchanting.
They finished playing just a leetle bit after Rich Hall came on ( in
another field – it may as well be another dimension for the distance &
time… ), so I said ‘buggrit’ once more to that prospect ( he’ll be on later as
Otis Lee Crenshaw ), for the sake of standing around expressing my desire for
food in the back of a rapidly 
emptying tent. I try to encourage folks to move in the direction of the lovely
foodstuff vendor outside, by yelling ‘Chips’ in an enthusiastic fashion. This
method fails. I realise direct group motivation to be more prudent, and get Hu
to move with me. The others follow, spluttering over the idea of a chips, and a
pouch of them costing me £1.50, before proceeding to snaffle them. Unable to
find the salt, I try adding sugar to them ( deliberately – my eyesight isn’t
that bad ). The concoction actually appears quite appetising. ( Again, this
might be something to do with my day-long ingestion of alcohol. ) A
booze-round-executive is elected to go off to a Workers Tent and bring back
pints, while the rest of us get to sit around on the grass, squabbling over
strawberry lollies and politely fighting for the one lighter in the group.
Jesse ponders a festival future where no-one brings a lighter, except for maybe
one man, everyone remembering the cigarettes but all presuming a friend to
bring something to light them with. ( Everyone else deems it unlikely. He seems
to feel it a real dystopia. )
And after twenty minutes of this, we all
dribble off towards the Other Stage. Approaching the Dance Tent, the drifting
notes ( squawks ) hook in our party leader, and Pied Piper like we are all
drawn in. Just in time to see KELIS garotting Nirvana, in a 
thrashing caterwaul of an encore. We all
file out again, quickly. Jesse ( ‘Pop Professor’ ) likens the experience to
‘watching a road-accident’. We hurry off towards the BETA BAND. An empty water
bottle with my name emblazoned across it ( why do they only sell Isabelle
water at Glastonbury yet nowhere else? ) is made me a present by Charlie. A
song and a half of the gloriously wibbly Beta Band is absorbed by our party,
before the impetus to move off in a head-start motion towards the Pyramid Stage
becomes too much. En route, however, we have several pauses: clothing
re-shuffles as it’s now getting cold, the all important chilli noodle purchase,
and of course, one or two tree-side wee stops. But I don’t really mind. Cos you
can’t stop me beaming. Cos we’re heading for DAVID BOWIE…
Onstage preening and perfect, hair long
and fair and kinky, he comes to close to looking the way he did in his Twenties
( and how he was styled in early parts of ‘Velvet Goldmine’ ). Sweating under
the stage lights, he says he’d take off the frock coat, but for his arrogant
conceit. We don’t care. David Bowie says he loves us; that tidal warmth of
feeling is mutual. Just to have him there playing those songs would be enough,
but all are delivered with a resonance and an energetic class, and so it’s not
just him that’s beaming with the thought of it all. No ‘Jean Genie’, yes to
‘Life on Mars’, and oh but he made me very very happy…
The others, driving back this evening, left
during the encore, but I stayed right until the lights came back up, only then
allowing myself to motor away. And, short of running, my next ten 
minutes
to the Cabaret Tent were the quickest you’ve ever seen me move; post-Bowie
dazed meanderings had been induced amongst most, but I’m speed-walking my way
through the amblers as though my life operates at 48 frames per second. THE
LEAGUE AGAINST TEDIUM is currently propounding his life philosophy in a very
large hat, and I need to be there as witness. Because he’s really very funny (
‘My aims are
that of an owl's: to whit to woo, eh ladies?’ ), astutely wise ( ‘All men are
brothers: hence war’ ), and happily aware of his own genius ( ‘"Brevity is
the soul of wit" said Shakespeare: I say "Wank!", thus I win’ ).
And that I seem to have heard some of the lines so many times I know them by
heart, and can now worry that his sets are in danger of becoming a reel of
axioms taken as a paper-chain of indelible catch-phrases by
the crowd, well, it all seems
somehow counter-balanced by the fact that he’s willing to wear a kettle for the
sake of a punch-line… A girl interrupted the set, about
half-way through, to apologise for doing so last year. Which astonishing
Glastonbury-logic made for a pause in the League’s stream of delirious
epigrams, while Simon opened up the floor to anyone else who wanted to say
sorry for something. In keeping with the act’s theme of random surreality, one
man apologised for his interruption next year. And when it came to be time to
leave the stage, Monkey seemed to get the loudest cheer. Oh, but the League’s
time will come…
Distressingly though, it seems like Rich Hall’s has come and gone.
For after the League, although I was expecting a grizzled redneck cheering us
into the early hours ( the timetable said simply ‘The Otis Show’ which was to
be presumed his, rather than that of CBBC’s aardvark ), I was 
actually presented with BRENDON BURNS.
Cocksure and uncompromising, he prides himself on being in-your-face. (
Literally, for some poor sods, during the sing-along-to-Gun mid-crowd
crotch-thrust start to the proceedings. ) But here he managed to pretty much
hit home with everything he was saying. I saw him last year ( with some of the same
material ), and there he seemed to be trying too hard to be edgy, and
screamingly confrontational about any subject that littered his path. But here,
the diatribe seemed to suit and the energy which infused it gave his topics the
lift they needed. Here, he was both loud ( ooooh yes ), entertaining and
informative. For example, ‘kangaroo’, in Aborigine, actually translates as ‘I
don’t know’. And, as a Casualty friend has informed him, if you put worms up
the eye of your penis ( for a thrill ), they will nest in your body AND IT WILL
BE THEY WHICH CAUSE THE PAIN. Ending proceedings with a mimed demonstration (
for both sexes ) on good fellatio techniques, the crowd were loath to let him
leave…
Lights on, and Tent-clearout begun, I was found by Ian once more, who
walked me back open-eared as I grumbled about not wanting to leave. I love
having my friends – from all over – in the one place, and being able to play
with them as easily as the constant rotation of bands and comedians.
Glastonbury is another little world, with so much to do and all of it lovely,
and the buoyant freedom here allotted us is so hard to recapture elsewhere. And
I don’t want to go home…
N.B. All photos, but for the ones which
feature me, were taken by me.
And the David Bowie picture was stolen
from dotmusic.
(I was too far from the stage – and with
a limp camera – to even try it.)
>>> Monday
Last revised: 09/07/03